Social and Emotional Learning in Australia and the Asia-Pacific

Around the globe, there is a growing awareness of the importance of addressing students' social and emotional development and wellbeing during schooling. Although the bulk of the work in this area has been conducted in North America and Europe, there is now a burgeoning interest in this topic in Australia and the wider Asia Pacific. This book is the first ever to provide a timely and important collection of diverse perspectives on and approaches to social and emotional learning in the Australian and Asia Pacific context. Adopting a broad view of social and emotional learning, the book explores positive psychology, belonging, teachers' professional development, pre-service training and post-initial training in Australia and in neighbouring communities such as China, Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, New Zealand, Fiji, and other Pacific nations. 

'Frydenberg, Martin, and Collie have provided an incredible service by bringing together in a single well planned scholarly volume an incredible and well balanced group of senior and early career cutting edge researchers from Australia, Asia and the Asia Pacific area tackling approaches and key issues of social and emotional learning.  Their much needed volume links research on key factors, such as differing perspectives, measurement issues, the identification of at-risk children, teachers' social and emotional development, and these and other across the cultures of an increasingly vibrant and developing geographic region. It is indeed encouraging to gain the sense of depth and breadth of ongoing research that the volume gives. '

                                John Roodenburg PhD FAPS MCEDP MCCOUNSP, Monash University Melbourne

'Social and Emotional Learning is understood to be a crucial part of the school curriculum.  This book covers the field, with a refreshing focus on work being done in Australia and in neighbouring countries.  For school psychologists, the book helps us to understand how SEL can help at every level - from working with individuals, small groups, whole classes, or with the entire school.  Our work with vulnerable students, individually or in small groups, is always more effective when embedded in the broader context of Social and Emotional Learning.'

Paul Bertoia FAPS MCEDP, Senior School Psychologist

Kit-Tai Hau, PhD, Choh-Ming Li Professor of Educational Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Erica Frydenberg Dip Ed, Dip Clin Psych, PhD is an educational, clinical and organisational psychologist who has practiced extensively in the Australian educational setting. She is a Principal Research Fellow and Associate Professor of Psychology at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education. She is an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society. She has authored or co-authored over 125 academic journal articles and chapters in the field of coping, has developed psychological instruments to measure coping in children, adolescents and adults, and has authored or co-authored 15 books on topics ranging from children's early years through to adolescence and parenting. She has received numerous Australian Research Council and philanthropic grants, been engaged as a consultant with organisations such as the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), Department of Education, Catholic Education Authority and Victorian Assessment and Curriculum Authority. She was the recipient of the Distinguished Scholar Award of the American Educational Research Association Special Interest Group Stress and Coping in Education, the University of Melbourne Medal for Research Excellence Faculty of Education Award and the University of Melbourne Knowledge Transfer Award. In 2013 she was the recipient of the Life-time Career Award of the Stress Anxiety Research Society, an international body of researchers and practitioners. She currently serves on the King David School Council, as well as numerous advisory committees of the Australian Psychological Society, and is past President of Oz Child: Children Australia.

Andrew Martin, BA (Hons), MEd (Hons), PhD, is a Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia specializing in motivation, engagement, achievement, and quantitative research methods. He is also an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Education, University of Oxford, an Honorary Professor in the Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney, a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association, a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, and President of the International Association of Applied Psychology's Division 5 Educational, Instructional, and School Psychology. Andrew is a Registered Psychologist (Psychology Board of Australia) recognized for psychological and educational research in achievement motivation and for the quantitative methods he brings to the study of applied phenomena. Although the bulk of his research focuses on motivation, engagement, and achievement, Andrew is also published in important cognate areas such as boys' education, gifted and talented pupils, academic resilience and academic buoyancy, personal bests, pedagogy, parenting, teacher-student relationships, and Aboriginal education. Andrew's research also bridges other disciplines by assessing motivation and engagement in sport, music, and work. In 2008 he received the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Raymond B. Cattell Early Career Award. Before that Andrew was listed in The Bulletin magazine's 'SMART 100 Australians' (2003) and was one of only three academics judged to be in the Top 10 in the field of Education in Australia. In 2002, his PhD was judged the Most Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation in Educational Psychology by Division 15 of the American Psychological Association, and was selected as the Most Outstanding PhD in Education by the Australian Association for Research in Education.